


I Don’t Want to Get Hit, so I’ll Max Out My Speed.

by Art1cHare



Category: The Flash (TV 2014), 痛いのは嫌なので防御力に極振りしたいと思います。| BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt so I'll Max Out My Defense. (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Gen, Heavily adapts the first 12 minutes of the anime, Oneshot, Sort Of, unbetaed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:00:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25913263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Art1cHare/pseuds/Art1cHare
Summary: Barry Allen has been overworking himself recently, so Iris persuades him to play the latest VRMMORPG, NewWorld Online. Choosing the username Flash, having never played a video game before, he opts to put all of his status points into AGI and sets out on a path of speed specialisation.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	I Don’t Want to Get Hit, so I’ll Max Out My Speed.

**Author's Note:**

> This crossover heavily adapts the the first half of Bofuri's Episode 1, so knowledge of the anime isn't really necessary.  
> Formatting is a bit funky, but oh well.

“Why not try it out now, Barry?” Iris suggested.

“Now?” He asked incredulously. “I only just got home.”

“Even more of a reason to do it,” she smiled at him from the screen, “You’ve been overworking yourself lately. You need a break, or you’re going to collapse!”

Barry ducked his head sheepishly. “Iris... my work is helping people. The police department managed to complete three separate cases today because of what I do. And new cases keep coming in-”

“The people will always need help, but you need to relax _now_.” Iris admonished him.

Barry’s face twisted. He knew that the legal system was far from perfect, and that it could only solve so many problems; yet the reminder that he was unable to help as many as he wanted to was a constant weight on his shoulders.

Iris noticed his expression change, and her own shifted to one of apology. “I’m sorry, Barr. I know how you feel about your work. But you won’t be able to do your best work if you’re overstressed, you know. Take a break and play the game, please.”

As always, Iris usually knew exactly what to say in order to persuade him to do something. This was an ability that she hadn’t lost when he moved out.

“You’re right, I guess.” Barry sighed. “Are you sure I should start without you, though? I’ve never played a game before, let alone a Virtual Reality one.”

Iris nodded fervently. “The article’s due in a few days, so I really need to get cracking. I’ll be able to join after then, though, so don’t worry too much. Focus on having fun!”

“Alright…”

“Keep your mind off work, Barry, and try to progress as much as possible. I’ll overtake you either way, though.” Iris winked. “I’ll see you then!”

Barry let a smile tug at the side of his face. “Goodbye, I’ll see you in a few days.”

Her face disappeared, and he was left staring at her profile picture. He turned off his phone and set it aside.

“Since Iris was so adamant, I think I can give it a go. May as well set it up...” He lifted the top flaps of the box, taking out the gear inside. One helmet, two gloves. They were already charged - a pleasant surprise. Barry pulled the gloves on and inserted the game card into the helmet, before putting that on as well and lying down on his bed. He braced himself and powered it on.

A blinking light materialised in front of him. An empty green neon bar appeared, but quickly filled up with light of the same colour - the loading bar - before disappearing. The NewWorld Online logo twinkled in the dark, empty space for a moment. That too soon vanished, and Barry found himself in a quiet, blocky landscape.

‘So this is Virtual Reality,’ he mused, ‘It feels so… real; although I suppose that’s the point.’

He attempted to move around, but paused. Only his upper body had the ability to move. He flailed on the spot for a moment before his eyes were drawn to a pale screen floating in the space in front of him. [ _Please enter your name_.] He rubbed his neck in embarrassment subconsciously, and lifted a finger to type.

[ _Flash]_. It was the online alias that he usually used.

The next screen to pop up had a range of colours and a mock-up of his own body. [ _Please choose your appearance_.] This was a feature added to provide players with a certain degree of anonymity in the Virtual Space. Although one could not alter their body shape in any way - a restriction added to aid mobility and the seamlessness of one’s control over their in-game avatar - one’s hair style, hair colour and eye colour could be chosen at the beginning of the game.

For this, Barry went with a simple choice. He kept his hair style as it was, but switched his hair colour to yellow, and his eye colour to blue. It was the furthest he could get from his actual features while remaining somewhat realistic, and although he didn’t have to stay true to natural human features, he was far more comfortable with them as compared to options such as white hair and red eyes.

He hit [ _OK_ ], prompting the screen to vanish. Translucent weapon models began floating slowly around him. The ability to move his legs was also returned, which he gladly took advantage of by wandering over to the weapons and inspecting them. None of them made much sense to him, despite the names floated above them. Long Sword, Great Axe, Staff…? He opted for a simple knife, the only ‘weapon’ that he had any sort of prior experience with, if cooking was counted as experience.

As he plucked the model from the air, it gained colour and became opaque. Another screen popped up in front of him. This one was asking him to allocate status points. Barry looked at his options, pressing and holding the question marks beside each of them to read their descriptions.

The one that stuck out to Barry was AGI, or Agility.

The little blurb explained what it did. Adding points to Agility would increase his attack and movement speed, making it seem incredibly appealing. Enemies couldn’t hit what they couldn’t lay their hands on, as he had learned soon after his father’s incarceration. (Iris had put a stop to the bullying when Joe adopted him, but the experience had left its mark on him. Speed had solved a lot of his problems in those earlier days.)

He tapped the [+] symbol next to AGI and poured all 100 status points into his speed. He wouldn’t need defense or luck if he could simply avoid being hit, and strength usually came with speed (1). Satisfied, Barry lifted his finger from the screen. An additional message soon appeared on top of it. ‘ _Information: Now being taken to starting area._ ’ Pixels filled his vision, and when they cleared, he was in a village centre.

* * *

The bright lights were the first thing that caught him off-guard. Compared to the gloomy backdrop of Central City, it was a major change. Barry doubted all the tacky advertisement billboards in the world could recreate anything as vibrant as this fantasy village. The blue sky was brighter than he thought was scientifically possible (2), as were the leaves of the tree near to his spawn point. The whole image was a sharp contrast to the grey, cloudy skies of the city, and Barry could feel his mood lifting already.

Looking around, he noticed that a main characteristics of this world were the endless copies of the same type of building - a wooden-roofed beige house complete with a leaf sticking from the top - and the sheer volume of greenery that was impossible to find within miles of Central City. Barry took a moment to reorient himself and test out his understanding of movement within the Virtual World, and quickly realised that he could move just as well as he could in real life. He made a few loops around the tree, discovering that his movements were actually better than in reality, as the physical drain on his body was decreased significantly.

Deciding that he had spent enough time exploring the capabilities of his virtual body, Barry recalled the basics of the game, drilled into his brain by Iris earlier on. He needed to find mobs, monsters that would give him Experience Points, in order to progress in this game. He peered around his surroundings, looking for any signposts that could point him in the right direction, but found nothing. It appeared that he would have to ask a more experienced player.

Barry turned to a passing player, hesitantly tapping them on the shoulder. The player was dressed in an almost-blinding multicoloured trench coat (3). As they turned, Barry realised that it was unbuttoned, revealing that the other was wearing a similarly-coloured tuxedo vest, contrasted by a black long-sleeved shirt and dark pants. He caught himself before he could involuntarily flinch back away from the glare of sunlight that reflected of the other player’s glasses.

“Um… excuse me,” he stammered, slightly intimidated by the player’s attire and the stern expression on his face, “Sorry to bother you, but do you know where I can find the monsters?”

The guy examined his attire for a moment. “A noob, right?”

Barry hoped his confusion didn’t show on his face.

“Try the forest to the West, newbie.” He pointed a thumb in the direction that Barry assumed was the Forest. “There are plenty of weak mobs over there.”

“Ah… thank you!”

“Good luck.” He turned and walked away, the lower half of his trench coat floating after him. (4)

Barry breathed a sigh of relief as he jogged in the direction of the aforementioned forest. The player had seemed a bit irritated about him impeding him, something that he didn’t think was all that good. It seemed that he needed more information from Iris about the social aspects of VRMMORPGs, including whether it was acceptable or not to ask others for guidance. She _had_ said that the people were often friendly, but…

Those thoughts were pushed out of his mind when he reached the border of the forest. The area was a bit crowded, and boasted leaves with a variety of shades of green, along with flora of hues that Barry had never seen before. If he listened closely, he could hear the chirps and buzzing of the digital creatures that inhabited the forest.

He ventured into the forest, following the path that stretched deeper into the woods. As he progressed, the number of people within his sight lowered, until he was alone on the path. Soon enough, a strange cream-coloured bunny with bright green-and-red ears popped out of the bushes that lined the path, nearly colliding with his leg. Barry drew the knife and pointed it at the creature. Despite its looks, he did not think it was all that friendly.

He was proven right when it charged at him again.

He narrowly avoided the attack. It attacked him again, and he dodged again. And again. And again. And _again_. After seemed like an age later, a screen popped up in front of him, startling him enough for him to rush in the wrong direction - right into the monster that he had been trying to avoid.

“Ow!” Barry rubbed his stomach as he stumbled away from the bunny.

Being hit - or accidentally hitting the creature - _had_ hurt, as he had feared. He waved away the screen quickly (something about Total Speed) and braced for another round of dodging. How did he use this knife-?

Barry suddenly noticed the attacks had stopped. Staring at the bunny, he saw it lying on the ground, unmoving. It was still. He jerked when it began disintegrating - no; dissolving into pixels. This must be a feature of the Virtual World. He sat down, relieved. Fighting monsters, although it did not take as much energy as it would have had this been real life, was tiring nonetheless.

He had time to read to read the pop-up from earlier, now. Pulling up the screen, he noticed that he had leveled up, giving him 5 more status points, but put it off for later. He tapped on a tab that read skills, and noted that only one item was listed - a passive one. [ _T_ _otal Speed_ ] . Pressing and holding the question mark next to it granted him an explanation. [ _Having this skill gives the user 2x AGI. STR, VIT, INT require 3x the points to increase.]_

That - was that good or bad? Barry shook his head. Game mechanics were quite confusing to figure out. Could he get rid of it? He did not see any option to, which meant that in order to efficiently use his status points, he would have to put them all into AGI or DEX. He returned to the home page and put them all into AGI, since it had worked out for him so far. As long as he kept dodging, he would not need defensive capabilities - or healing capabilities, which he assumed INT was for. Satisfied, he continued along the path.

The next creature he encountered made its presence heard before he noticed it. The loud buzzing of its wings gave it away, and looking in the direction of the sound, he noticed a bug moving swiftly in his direction. This gave Barry enough time to dodge the monster, which he realised belatedly was much slower than him. It appeared that having a high AGI stat had worked out, a comforting thought. At least he was doing _something_ right in the game.

The flying bug made a few more passes, missing him each time, before it began shooting globs of poison at him. Taken aback by this new type of attack, Barry barely avoided the first shot, a lick of poison hitting the tip of his finger. He hissed in pain at the burning sensation, and put more effort into trying to avoid the bug. Maybe it was better if he cut his losses and fled… Was he allowed to do that? Did the monsters follow you all the way back?

...He seriously needed to get more information out of Iris soon.

Since he was not sure if he was even able to flee the bug, it was best to try to take it out. Quickly. He didn’t know how to the use the knife, not really, and so Barry pocketed it and readied his body. He would have to rely on those old boxing lessons from Joe and Iris.

The next time the bug came at him, he dodged and tried to punch it. He failed.

It came again. He missed.

The creature’s body and hitbox were simply too small, and despite his speed being superior to it, he couldn’t land a hit. Barry lowered his fists and began searching for an alternative way to beat it. The only thing around here were plants and such - bushes, fallen logs, patches of flowers, and trees. Trees.

He gradually made his way over to the tree with the thickest trunk in between dodges. Once he was there, he allowed himself a brief moment of respite as the bug flew towards him, before he made use of his superior speed to duck out of the way and smack it into the tree, adding to the thing’s velocity and increasing the force of its impact. It fell limply to the floor, its body dissipating, leaving behind a silver ring.

Barry tapped on the screen that appeared when he picked it up, prompting a description of the ring. [ _Forest Queen Bee’s Ring: AGI +6_ ] ( 5) . He supposed that helped a bit, but with his agility already being 210, the ring held little appeal. Perhaps he could sell it later. He allocated the 15 status points that he had gained from defeating the Forest Queen Bee into AGI again, then took a look at the other item that he had obtained from the battle. It was a skill, [ _Giant Killing_ ].

[ _When four of your stats (other than HP/MP) are lower than your opponent, your stats other than HP/MP are multiplied by x2_ ] it read. Barry could feel his mood lifting. With all of his stats, with the exception of agility, being literally rock-bottom, [ _Giant Killing_ ] would always be activated when against an opponent. Agility specialisation had been a brilliant idea; he was now 480 AGI points up from when he had started. It was nice to be fast - if he ever had meetings in this world, he wouldn’t be late to them, unlike in real life. (6)

He involuntarily yawned once he cooled down from the satisfaction of his progress. He hadn’t realised how mentally exhausted he was. Iris’ admonishments and Joe’s worried glances at the CCPD earlier were beginning to make more sense now; Barry had thought it was just his body protesting, since he had been wide awake that afternoon. That clearly wasn’t the case.

His thoughts halted for the first time in days as he leaned against a tree, staring at the brightly-lit fantastical flora that surrounded him. They were so colourful; the virtual world was the stuff of dreams...

...It would be so easy to just fall asleep…

* * *

He woke to loud buzzes right next to his ears. Instantly awake, Barry jumped to his feet, although a tad unsteadily. His eyes snapped open and he (although he doubted he’d admit it) squeaked at the number of bugs surrounding him. Regular bugs he could deal with - giant mutated bugs that were actively trying to attack him? Not so much. The closest monster found a knife buried in its head within moments, before the weapon was flung at the body of the next approaching bug.

Much as he loathed having to touch the things, Barry hated the idea of them biting him even more. The body he was inhabiting may be digital, but he would feel each and every sensation it felt. The thought of not wanting to be eaten motivated him to punch the spider that was creeping its way down the tree trunk towards his head, resulting in it shattering into pixels. Barry paused. That had been surprisingly effective.

An idea made its way into his head.

He checked abovehead quickly, determining that there were no more bugs coming from the canopy. Dredging up a memory from years ago, and fell into a vaguely familiar boxing stance. While he had no access to boxing gloves, the spider had proven that he did not need them right now. Barry kicked the advancing giant caterpillar away, then twisted his body to jab the flying bug approaching from the right. He turned back the caterpillar to deliver another kick, killing it. Four monsters remained.

They were some distance away, although still clearly intent on attacking him. Phase two; he moved. Kicking off from the solid tree trunk, Barry launched himself past three of his opponents with all the speed that he could muster, punching his target - the monster furthest from his original position - squarely in the snout. The snarling wolf disintegrated, and he stopped moving abruptedly, spinning around to face the last three. The two flying ones had been slightly blown back by the air he had displaced and were still recovering, while the other, a large centipede, was moving towards him.

He kicked it twice, which did the job. The final two had recuperated by then, and were making their way to him. He ducked under the first attack and retrieved his knife, using it to stab the second, and then took out the last monster with another punch. They disappeared, pinkish pixels fading as the adrenaline wore off.

Barry stood frozen for a moment, basking in his victory over the bugs, before coming back to his senses. He noticed starkly that he was not at all physically tired, a positive side effect of fighting virtually, although his mind was still racing. He sheathed his knife robotically, and focused his attention on the screens that had popped up sometime during the fight, layered on top of each other.

[ _Wind Vortexes - Weak_ ] The first reads. [ _Weak vortexes of air are generated and directed towards the enemy._ ]

The skill looks decent, and it’s the first actual attack that he has obtained. He thinks back to the fight, and recalled how the flying bugs had been stalled by him running past them at high speeds. That must have been when the skill popped up. He smiled, satisfied with his acquisition. Dismissing that screen, he looked at the next tab.

It’s a passive ability, rather than an active skill. [ _Passive - Inertia Resistance_ ]. There is no description listed, but Barry can deduce what it is, the name being rather self-explanatory. When he had stopped with minimal deceleration earlier, upon punching the wolf, he had distantly noticed that such a quick change in speed would have led to a fall in the real world. This skill explained his steady footing.

He closed the tab, and allocated his 10 new stat points into AGI, before deciding to finish up. Now that he had cooled down from the fight, he realised that his tiredness was still present, although not as overwhelming as it had been before his nap, meaning that he ought to go to sleep _outside_ the virtual world. He pulled up the main menu and logged out.

His awareness of his actual body returned to him with the sound of the helmet powering down. Slightly disoriented, Barry pushed up from the bed and lifted it off his head, blinking as he readjusted to the dim lighting of his room. The virtual reality game had been… an experience. He felt that he had enjoyed it far more than he should have. Perhaps he could try it again after work tomorrow? Iris would be happy.

His musings grinded to a halt when he noticed the blinking lights of his digital clock.

_00:58_ . Barry’s eyes widened, despite the strain that the action caused. He had a job to get to tomorrow, and needed to be awake in six hours. He _had_ to be on time, Captain Singh had begun making his displeasure about Barry’s tardiness heard.

The gaming equipment was pushed aside as he rushed to get to sleep.

* * *

**Extra bits (Out-takes &** **_Notes_ ** **):**

1: He would realise that this wasn’t the case in video games later on, but by then he’d be too cemented in his path of AGI-specialisation _._

2: It wasn’t, because the whole purpose of Virtual Reality is to create a fictional world.

3: _I found Rainbow Raider’s attire to be too dark in the TV adaption, but too unrealistic in the comics. I located this compromise via google images;_ [ _https://www.deviantart.com/needham-comics/art/New-52-Rainbow-Raider-Redsign-457817403_ ](https://www.deviantart.com/needham-comics/art/New-52-Rainbow-Raider-Redsign-457817403) _. My own idea of his attire is heavily based off this, but not exactly the same. Did my best to describe the image in my head._

4: “Chroma, who was that?”

“Just some new player. They were asking for directions.”

“They look terrified of you.”

“Like you’re any better. They’d be scared of _you_ if they’d asked you, what with your build and your voice, Heatwave.”

“Hmm. There are a lot more people around here these days…”

“Whatever, let’s go.”

“Right, Cold’s already here.”

“Oh? Ah. You’re punctual, Captain.”

5: _The closest equivalent for Maple’s defense share was Barry’s energy sharing ability, which is quite similar. However, the only other vitality/HP combination is intelligence/MP, making it difficult to have a ring that restores MP without deviating from the AGI-specialisation theme. Hence, just a simple ring with tradable abilities later._

6:Once the Guild was formed, and they had Guild meetings, Barry would learn that it was indeed possible to be late to meetings with a high Agility.

**Author's Note:**

> I apologise for the awkward dialogue, still working on that bit. I have planned out the rest of the episode, but exams are coming up and it takes me a while to both get around to writing and to write, so may/may not end up finishing it.  
> Anyway, hope it was alright. :)


End file.
